Peter Dimov wrote:
Robert Ramey wrote:
It was precisely the posting of a question regarding this which clarified the question in my own mind.
The existence of a standard in no way effects the "third party" status of any particular implmentation.
It does (from legal and support point of view) since there is a single supplier, the compiler vendor. If the vendor has been cleared for use (and you have to have a compiler cleared for a project), you get the standard library for free, but not Boost, you need a separate uphill battle for that. Or so I hear.
You may have heard right - I wouldn't know. It would sure be a disappointing to find that huge efforts to define the interface of an ever expanding library are being expended just to meet the requirements imposed by a group of lawyers who are not knowledgable about what's really going on. BTW - all the compiler vendors require customer's accept a disclaimer that the their code and/or libraries have any errors and require that one sign a waiver absolving them of any errors in their code. I doubt that compiler vendors guarentee to pay you're legal costs of something in the library turns out to have been which violates a patent. I can't see whether or not something is in the standard would effect the legal issues involved - as the standard addresses interface - not implementation. Some lawyers may believe that the fact something is or is not in the standard may have some legal implications. But I doubt that such beliefs have any real foundation. Of course the fact that they believe may have real implications - but its not a great rationale for such an undertaking. Robert Ramey